Are Bitcoin Casinos Legal?

A widely asked question by the gambling community is with regards to the legality of Bitcoin casinos, and more specifically are Bitcoin casinos legal? Since nearly the inception of Bitcoin as a widely used digital currency the online gambling has started to embrace this new form of virtual currency. Currently legislation specifically targeted to Bitcoin casinos is either non existent or rather unclear.

Are Bitcoin Casinos Legal?

Before looking at Bitcoin specifically, all players should make sure they know the actual online gambling laws pertinent to the jurisdiction that they reside. Therefore at first look gambling with Bitcoins should be viewed as the same as gambling with USD for example. So using the example of the US again it is illegal to gamble online in some states of the US, and as such some Bitcoin casinos have taken action to prevent players from the United States from accessing their websites, such as Dice site Satoshi Dice.

Just like normal online casino sites that deal in fiat currencies, some Bitcoin casino sites operate overseas where gambling is legal. They claim that this allows them to take bets legally, as long as the players follow the laws of their own country. As such these sites do not block US gamblers.

The other side of the coin is with regards to which countries actually view Bitcoins as a currency and those that do not, arguable have no jurisdiction over Bitcoin casinos. This could and probably will change regularly so a good place to start researching country specific laws on Wikipedia.

In the U.S. Senate hearing on Bitcoins, politicians agreed that the crypto-currency was in fact legal, but they did not declare whether or not Bitcoin gambling was legal or not. Again leaving the Legality of Bitcoin Casinos unclear.

Summary

Overall, to gamble with Bitcoins legally you first need to find out the jurisdiction of gambling in your area and then find out if there is any issues with Bitcoin gambling. The other obvious area worth considering is gambling on Bitcoin sites that offer anonymity and additionally using Bitcoin anonymously so that it is impossible for anyone to tell who you are and where you are gambling from. We currently believe that there is zero cases of Bitcoin gambling users getting into any trouble with gambling online, and as such believe it is ok for Bitcoin users to gamble online, the main issue is ensuring your find sites that you trust.